Overview

• The court sentenced service company head Svetlana G. to four years in prison, with two years suspended, and handed one-year terms to two recruiters for human trafficking and forced labor.
• Judges fined a Marne wine cooperative €75,000, ordered the recruitment firm’s dissolution and mandated €4,000 in compensation for each exploited worker.
• Labour inspectors found migrants sleeping on floors or air mattresses in unsanitary communal housing, working long days with minimal food, water and no promised pay.
• Four harvest workers died during extreme temperatures in September 2023, and the Préfecture de Marne shut down the Nesle-le-Repons site after neighbours reported health hazards.
• Unions and the Association of Champagne houses and winemakers are pushing to embed enforceable labour standards into the champagne quality seal to curb future abuses.